| Applies To | |||
| Product(s): | WaterGEMS | ||
| Version(s): | All | ||
| Area: | Modeling |
How does Darwin Calibrator work with customer meter element demands?
There are two aspects where Customer Meter elements come into play during calibration:
1) Their influence on the overall hydraulics of the system during calibration. Meaning, the flows in the pipes will be affected by the demands from customer meters, which affect other hydraulics such as pressure.
2) Demand Adjustments - you have the ability to specify junctions where the demand may be uncertain and Calibrator will attempt to make suggested adjustments to the demands in order to match field data. There are some things to note when junctions with associated customer meters are included in demand adjustment groups.
As explained in the Background section above, the flows in the pipes will be affected by the demands from customer meters, which affect other hydraulics such as pressure.
Running Darwin Calibrator (in general) with the presence of customer meters has been supported since version 08.11.06.XX.
The exception is customer meters assigned to pipes, as documented in this article: "Customer Meters associated with pipes are not currently supported with Darwin Calibrator..."
If you would like to add Demand Groups in Darwin Calibrator for suggestions on adjusted demands, please keep in mind the following. Demand adjustment groups are intended for junction demands where the entered demand is uncertain. So, it is unlikely that you would want to adjust demands that were established from billing meter information. Meaning, the customer meter demands are assumed to be based on billing information and taken as fact, therefore not adjustable as part of a calibration.
Regardless, to do this, you would select the junctions for your demand group(s) and Calibrator would make adjustments to the base demand as it does with a "normal" junction demand. In the case of a junction with associated customer meters, the total calculated base demand would be the sum of the associated customer element demands for the given timestep. Calibrator will correctly see this and can make/suggest adjustments to that overall base demand.
Two things to keep in mind:
1) Currently only junction nodes can be selected in Demand Adjustment groups. It would not make sense to use hydrants (only flowing during flushing or a fire) or individual customer elements (with a known demand). If you have hydrant nodes that should be junctions, you can use the Batch Morph tool, available in the Tools menu.
2) Demand adjustments to junctions with associated customer elements need to be manually applied in the model; they won't be included when exporting a Solution. If for example you had two customer elements associated with a junction, Darwin would not know how to take the single value of the adjusted base demand from the junction and apply it to the two customer elements.
Enhancement 725195 has been filed, to investigate possible changes in a future release.
Customer meter elements and the external customer meter data manager
Can I change the associated element for a customer meter in a child scenario?
Associating multiple customer meters to one element using the global edit function